Recap: Cleveland 86, New York 117 (or if this team was a horse, someone would shoot it) — Updated
2014-01-30
That was awful. I’ve had surgeries that were more fun than that game. Cleveland didn’t compete in the first half, spotting the Knicks 17 points on a 38-21 first quarter, and then mailing in a 22-15 second quarter. A token effort was made in the third. Cleveland actually cut the lead to 15 at one point, and outscored New York 29-21 (this game’s lone moral victory), before the Knicks “rallied” to post a 36-21 fourth. There was very little good, and a lot of bad in the way the Cavs played tonight
Andy didn’t suit up, and Tyler Zeller started in his place. New York came out on fire, and Cleveland seemed like deer in the headlights. Mike Brown seemed powerless to adjust to New York’s small lineup, with Carmelo Anthony at the four, and J.R. Smith at the three. The matchup became Deng on Anthony and Tristan Thompson on J.R. Smith, because, you know, that makes sense. Tristan Thompson was helpless. Smith destroyed him, and Tristan finished with two points, two rebounds and five personal fouls in 22 minutes. To say that teams have figured him out, would be like saying hackers have figured out Target. Tristan Thompson can’t guard anyone who can shoot, and he can’t shoot, himself. I love the guy, but he’s been exposed.
Luol Deng played a valiant game. The Cavs made a concerted effort to get him the ball early, but he just couldn’t finish consistently around the basket. The achilles injury is clearly bothering him. Deng ended up 3-9 with 13 points and 11 assists. His defense on ‘Melo was decent in the second half was solid, and the fact that keep I will miss his game when he’s playing anywhere but here next season.
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Update: Logged in to find that I’d hit “Publish” in my sleep last night, so, I apologize for the brevity of the initial post. It was supposed to be finished this morning. I’ll add that Dion Waiters played a a solid game and seemed to exert some effort in scoring and playing with “energy” (what does that even mean?). He was 8-15 with 21 points in 25 minutes, but as Greg Anthony noted in the TNT broadcast, the Cavs seem to have no offensive structure, no idea what they want to do, and everything is initiated with the dribble.
Speaking of off the dribble, Greg Anthony quoted Mark Jackson, coach of the Warriors, as saying that Jarrett Jack was one of the, “greatest leaders he’s ever been around.” If by “leading,” Jackson meant chucking up contested elbow jumpers early in the shot clock, then I’d agree. Jack joined the “one-fer” gang, and went 1-8, joining Thompson, Clark, Bennett, and Zeller in the “yay, I made (one) basket” department. They were better than the “o-fer” gang of Gee and Delly who couldn’t hit any field goals. Jack, like many other Cavs just played as if he didn’t trust any of his teammates, and just wanted to pull a Snake Plissken, and Escape From New York.
C.J. was a not awful -8 in 13 minutes (not awful compared to everyone else). He finished with nine on 3-4 shooting from outside the arc. Naturally he only played 13 minutes. Zeller played 14 and had two points and a rebound. Those players’ minutes and their production point to a humongous problem with this team. Outside of Irving, Waiters, Andy, Deng, and — debatably — Tristan Thompson, no one on this team seems to know what their role is. It’s not helping. C.J. doesn’t know if he’s playing 10 minutes or 35. Zeller doesn’t know either. It doesn’t seem as if there’s, you know, a “plan” with each game.
Brown seemed to have no answer for New York’s offense. I guess he didn’t realize that with Deng guarding Melo, Smith would be on Tristan. The Cavs had no idea what they wanted to do on offense, and half the subs came in and ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. The most comical Brown move was to bring in Anthony Bennett to guard ‘Melo, which lead to vicious crossovers and violent dunks for Anthony (Caremelo Anthony). Gum Drop Bear returned from his his outlier 15 point game to score 4 points off 1-6 shooting.
A Henry Sims sighting completes the night. He played hard, got some layups and some blocks. He earned himself some more playing time. Maybe he should get some minutes when whoever is going replace Chris Grant sends Anthony “sunk cost” Bennett to the D-League.
It’s hard to know what to say about this team, other than they seemed scared out of their minds to be playing on national television. Please, for the love of God, Dan Gilbert, start interviewing people to run this basketball team. You and the people you have in charge are doing an awful job.
@Rick, your argument regarding Chris Grant’s drafting is belied by the facts. 1) Tristan Thompson was a reach. Valanciunas should have been the pick and it is not revisionist history. Every analyst said it at the time. Not only does he play a position of need and one that is harder to fill (Center), he is younger, has been in the league for one less year but is putting up statistically similar numbers to Thompson, has a better PER, and a better all-around offensive game. His ceiling is also higher. 2) Anthony Bennett was even more of a reach and… Read more »
greyrat: 1. This is the NY Daily News you are talking about. Some of it might actually be true. But who knows what part? What did they say about UFO’s today? 2. How old do you think Deng is? He has probably played more minutes than ANYONE in the last 10 years. A bit late in his career to build a young team around. OTOH, I totally agree he would be a great player to keep, if a reasonable deal can be made. 3. Immature 19 year old’s with talent sometimes get it together and become great. Older players with… Read more »
@Arch Stanton – the NY daily news article was so disappointing/frustrating to read. Players taking off their uniform tops and threatening not to go back in for the 2nd half?? Mouthing off to the coach?? Kicked out of practices?? WTH is going on with this franchise?? Where are the suspensions?? You going to threaten not to play? Fine stay in the locker room – you are suspended for the next 2 games. I don’t care who it is on this crappy team. Suspend any player that pulls that garbage. I know on the CtB board there is a lot of… Read more »
Very good articles Arch Stanton. Thanks for bringing that up. If Luol Deng is telling his friends stuff like that, I believe that much more than anything else. He’s an outsider and this is his first experience with this team. It’s terrible if they’re that immature. Dion getting kicked out of practices and then nothing being done about it? Where’s the enforcement? These guys are all (Kyrie and Dion especially) acting way too big for their britches. It’d be one thing if the Cavs were 10 games over 0.500. It’s completely another if they’re acting like this when they haven’t… Read more »
Here’s another one. This team needs it’s own gossip column with all the drama. This article points to Bynum leaving because of Kyrie.
http://fansided.com/2014/02/01/nba-rumors-andrew-bynum-frustrated-with-kyrie-irving-cleveland-cavaliers/
Wow Arch Stanton. Everybody should read that article.
More good news… Looks like the players were partying into the wee hours the night before the Knick game… Players are acting out in practice or getting kicked out like Waiters but aren’t held accountable… Blow this mother up
Veteran Luol Deng not happy about being traded into mess that is Cleveland Cavaliers
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/lawrence-deng-isn-happy-traded-mess-cleveland-article-1.1598983#ixzz2s7LAdkjZ
this may be a totally absurd comment—possibly Bynum could see the inferior / nonsense coaching drcisions and spoke his mind —-sometimes ” THE TRUTH HURTS “—-STEPPING ON THE COACHES TOES——-JUST A THOUGHT
Well in other NBA news. Pacers just signed Bynum. Should get interesting. So curious what Bynum really did to piss Cavs off in the end.
@Rick: Spot on about Chris Grant
But, like underdog said, we’ve had TWO separare coaches that have made it to the NBA Finals in Scott and Brown, and yet this team looked terrible each time. Something more has to be going on, and I’m not sure what that is…
. . . but let’s not think that firing Mike Brown will automatically solve all our problems. We had many similar problems (no defense, ball movement, effort issues) under Byron Scott, too.
Good post, Rick.
Everything being so chaotic – even if you don’t know what to do . . . or what players to retain or trade . . . a good first step would be to bring in a new coach, a new leader and see if he can straighten out the players. If not, we go with new players.
Tristan has been figured out? His last 6 games have produced 3 double-doubles? He destroyed the Suns and the Morris’ open jumpers were mostly off broken team defense rotations. What are you even talking about? The off-ball hustle 4-man on a team with mediocre ball movement and terrible spacing has been up and down…shocking. Tristan’s playing better than any big in his draft class. Better than Jonas, better than Faried, better than Kanter and more impactful this year than Vucevic who you could make an argument for. What exactly should he be doing differently in this broken system? Because he’s… Read more »
Very well said Rick.
FIRE MIKE BROWN
I know I’m jumping in late here but oh well. In my opinion and thru what I’ve observed, Chris Grant has really done the best he could considering the circumstances. The talent level in those 3-4 drafts have been historically bad and he’s pretty much nailed the top 2-3 players in each one, yes even Anthony Bennett (who was thought of as a top 5 talent last year). He’s handled the salary cap well. Everyone pretty much think he has made excellent trades. The structuring of the Bynum contract got praise from all corners. BUT, it all falls apart once… Read more »
As a lurker and Cavs fan I appreciate all the back and forth and attempt to transmogrify your suffering. Questions: What new coaching possibilities would address the cultural challenge? What five player combo (in the normal CFFGG configuration,) represents the best defensive five drawn from the current roster? What five player combo represents the best offensive five drawn from the current roster? Any overlap besides Andy? *** I, like one of you admitted that your wife thinks too, am always appalled that “it’s hard to get responsive employees for many millions of dollars a year.” The offensive ‘standing around’ might… Read more »
JHill,
So you wanted us to draft Derrick Williams so we would suck worse? That seems illogical.
Kemba Walker is averaging 18 5 and 4 with a PER of 17… He is 23
Kyrie is averaging 22 6 and 3 with a PER of 20 … He is 21
Why in the world would you want us to have Derrick Williams or Kemba Walker? For the off chance of having the worst record in the league and then less than 40% chance of actually getting the #1 a year after getting #1?
@Wes, was just thinking that williams would have led to the worst record in the NBA and gave us a better shot at #1 pick the davis year. Plus I liked Kemba better than Kyrie. Dude at least wants to win.
@jon even if it’s via a tiebreaker, making the playoffs will be more beneficial to this team then going into the lottery again. This is not me saying this alone. Countless analysts and former players talk about how valuable a playoff appearance was/is to young teams. It would be the best possible thing for Kyrie and co.
As for the “delusional” thing, sorry. Calls as ’em as I sees ’em…
Vesus, etc.,
Do you think George Karl (or God, for that matter) could turn this crew into contenders? They need a couple more first line players.
You can’t complain about losing and then recommend more losing as a solution. No tanking. What they need to do is bring in George Karl. If this team doesn’t respond to a good coach, it just means they’re all losers anyway.
IT’s a day later, and I still feel that poor bad dude in The Crow who had to experience all the pain he’d caused everyone in twenty seconds–before exploding…yesterday was like witnessing their 26-game losing streak in a curt 2 hour game. I know Jimmy Haslem has made few friends lately, but if he ran this organization, fired Brown, and said he “did not see improvement” with the Cavs, how many could argue with him? I compliment the posts the last few days who have rightfully said without a balanced focus (offense AND defense), players tune out, burn out, and… Read more »
“Kj says:
January 7, 2014 at 11:15 am
You guys who think we shouldn’t make the playoffs this year are delusional.”
Kj, how about you stop calling people who disagree with you “delusional”? Even if we do end up making the playoffs, it’ll be just barely.
Could be worse. We could have Dumars as GM: http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/01/31/report-pistons-would-trade-josh-smith-if-they-could/
The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing but expecting different results. Many said they’d give it until the end of January before drawing any conclusions. Something is wrong. Something needs to be done. In the least, one or two of these things need to be done: Trade Kyrie, Dion, or fire Mike Brown. I’m not partial to who goes because we don’t know what’s really going on with the team and we don’t know what we can get in return for the two players. We just can’t settle for fifty cents on the dollar. The one… Read more »
1. The “who is at fault, KI or DQ?” debate is pointless. Both are not playing up to par. KI has much more potential, but is also under performing worse. 2. Cory, I HOPE the Cavs hit reset. But a smart reset is either/or (1) tanking this year, and/or (2) trading for better fitting players who are good. The worst thing would be a panic trade in hopes of going for the playoffs this year. I don’t know if CG is on the hotseat, but a dumb trade will be his history forever. If he gets fired but made good… Read more »
I’m against the Cavs trading Kyrie, but if the Lakers get a top three pick, I could live with that trade. Lakers aren’t about developing players. Cavs can hit reset, get a SF like Parker or Wiggins and build around a new youngster. PG is the deepest position in the league by a mile.
Anyway we could get an open letter written and send someone to the game with copies of it and give it to all the players? Like sit behind the bench?
What is our record differential if you replaced Kyrie with say Jose Calderon? PG is BY FAR the deepest position in the NBA. Yes Kyrie has a ton of upside, but based on his regression over the last year, does anyone still think he has the potential to be the best player on a contender?? Losing Kyrie is not the same as losing Lebron, so that storyline (while unavoidable nationally) is dumb. I would be quietly listening to offers for him around the league. Could you get Rondo and some picks out of Boston? Could you get Lawson et others… Read more »
I don’t necessarily disagree with most of that, Kj. All of that is entirely possible and Kyrie does still need to mature a great deal. But, I’m confused what meets your definition of media. Former players can’t become part of the national media? Huh? Last week when the East starters were announced, Kyrie took a black eye from the media on national sports talk radio, on sports blogs, ESPN’s 5 on 5 panel, etc.
TV, those are all former PLAYERS. That is not the media. The writers at ESPN all believe it is Grant, Brown and Gilbert’s fault. The national meme, despite evidence, is that we should’ve drafted Jonas and Barnes. That is set in stone as is that Gilbert is meddlesome, again, despite the evidence. These memes will NEVER go away short of a playoff apperance this year and maybe not even that will change it. So, the pressure builds and Kyrie and his “brand” begin to panic and the whispers around him from all sides will be that “LBJ was great too… Read more »
my eyes are still bleeding from watching that game.